


Nothing To Ring In The Sound Of Silence

by GothMoth



Series: Ectobers Ectoplasmic Splatters [10]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Amity Park Is Danny's Lair, Ancient Danny, Angst, Apocalypse, Death, End of the World, Future Fic, Gen, Genetic Disorders & Abnormalities, God Danny, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Melting, Phantom Planet Compliant, Post-Apocalypse, Too Quiet, end of the universe, immortal danny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-22 18:28:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21081095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GothMoth/pseuds/GothMoth
Summary: Logic says nothing gets to exist forever, but Danny has made a habit of defying both logic and the laws of the universe. But that’s just Danny, not everything or everyone else.





	Nothing To Ring In The Sound Of Silence

**Author's Note:**

> Ectober 2019 Day 6 & 24: Silence and Nothing  
*Note: So I combined these two days in this fic because it just flowed so damn well for me. Originally this was just supposed to be for ‘Silence’ but it evolved. I didn’t really feel it long enough to break into two chapters.

It’s been a long time. A long time since everything happened. A long time since there’s been anyone. Danny stops in his floating to stare at the dilapidated statue of himself, speaking purely to hear sound, “the world’s been silent a long time”. 

It hadn’t happened suddenly, of course it hadn’t. That was part of how Danny knew in his gut that he might not be able to do anything. See Danny’s problems, his fights and the catastrophes he stopped, they always popped up suddenly with great alarm. But the slow decay and breaking down of everything’s genetics had crept up on everyone. 

It had started with the oldest of creatures and things. Old world ferns and bugs and birds. No one gave much of a damn besides those who truly loves those things. Sure some people mourned the extinctions, but humans had been driving things to extinction for a long time. Most of the world even rejoiced when misquotes seemed to get hit, but the fields of science went into a panic. Because with that drop, so too did many others decline in numbers; bats most notably. 

But it wasn’t until some fruit plants started to go that the rest of the world began to worry. There had already been a food crisis and this would make it worse. Other people only cared that they would never get to eat another banana or leaf of lettuce again. 

But the commotion was enough to get Danny curious. If this had started back when Sam was still alive, he would have paid attention sooner. But it had been a long time since her, or Tucker, or even Amity. It had hurt when the town had to be abandoned, no longer able to financially support all the excessive damage. Course Danny still protected the place, but repairs didn’t happen much. Leaving the place too destroyed to be inhabitable by humans. But Danny was part ghost, something stagnant, something that didn’t do ‘change’. So he never really left, just made Amity his lair in genuine. Modifying and altering it as he pleased. The roads glowed, the nasty burger always had ectoplasmic food even if no one worked there, buildings began repairing themselves, colours changed according to the halfas mood, etcetera. The rest of the world was perfectly content to let their saviour do as he pleased with the place and it even became something of a tourist hotspot and shrine to Phantom.

But it was also firmly a place no one wanted to actually stay in, catering to Phantom and Phantom alone. And he was weird, he’d always been weird. But after a few hundred years being stuck in between life and death. After losing all his human connections and many of his ghostly ones. He became a little too weird for most of humanity to handle long term. The snapping of fangs, the paranoia, the ease with which he could become a soldier on the battlefield, the utter disregard for his own safety, the treating of serious injuries like old friends and minor annoyances. He was too weird for most ghosts as well, the exception being other older ghosts. But most of those older ghosts were too stick in the mud or loners to be close with Phantom. An endlessly social, silly ghost filled with good-natured trickery and wanderlust. His lair was much the same, prone to playing tricks of the eye or leading people in circles. Sometimes disabling other ghosts powers at random or stealing their things only to return them as soon as the ghost left. The food that grew there, only appealing to Phantom himself. Mustard pickles that tasted of flowers, milkshakes made of frosted flakes that were somehow smooth not crunchy, apples that screamed with the texture of strawberry mousse. So while the place got plenty curious eyes and worshiping filled minds, it didn’t get any permanent residents. Other than the famous half-ghost himself. 

And Danny didn’t really mind the silence, the chance to be alone, that his abandoned ghost town of a lair now granted him. It was a nice break from the constant action and sounds of battle that was his everyday life. So he relished it, the silence, the same way he relished floating lazily through the starry sky. 

Smiling with nostalgia, Danny lands on the roof of the nasty burger, ghostly tail curling around the sign. Now Amity stood as one of the few places that wasn’t destroyed, that hadn’t crumbled to rot and litter. The irony of that makes Danny laugh. As he puts his head in his hand and looks up at the clear starry sky, light pollution no longer possible. He’d never thought he’d be upset about that. But he is. He is because of what it means. The lack of electricity, the lack of importance for it, the lack of humans, the lack of need for it. Danny’d always adored his night vision, did even more now, but what he wouldn’t give to get slightly blinded and startled by a fluorescent lightbulb suddenly going off. This thought gets Danny floating off the building to poke at a few lightbulbs. Sure electric had stopped being a thing in Amity long before the rest of the world. He had basically told everyone not to bother, seeing as he could and did just light the place with ectolights. What he hadn’t expected was having to eventually light the whole world with them. Now, well, now he didn’t even bother. There was no one or thing to make light for. 

Danny himself hadn’t paid attention to, hadn’t really worried about, what was happening until the platypus went extinct. Other mammals rapidly following suit. And when the canines and felines got hit, that’s when the chaos started. When _everyone _started giving a damn in genuine. When the research got funded like crazy and became the focal point of news or awards. 

Danny himself helped out by finding things for the scientist faster than any other person really could and bringing it back faster than even the best hovercoppers or jets could. This was the point where Danny managed to throw the world through another loop, surprise everyone again. No one really knew he was easily as intelligent as his sister, that his mind couldn’t decay because of his halfa state. Couple that with his body being constantly covered in a hazmat suit and being naturally antibacterial, well he was extremely helpful for the scientific and medical community. But Danny couldn’t help much when medicines couldn’t be made any more or when plastic became increasingly rare. 

That was another thing about Danny and his problems. They came at him head-on and he faced them head-on. It was a battle, always something he could physically do. But not this time. This had been something marching forward slowly, decaying and eating away at all of life. So Danny did the thing he knew best and looked for ghostly reasons. Searched the Zone for any clues. And that, that’s when he truly began to worry, to freak out. Because the Zone wasn’t getting bigger, it wasn’t gaining any of the dead souls. Sure not everything that died became part of the Zone, but usually at least a third did. For nothing to be going to the Zone? That was more than just worrying, that was logically impossible. Asking around didn’t yield any results, and ClockWork had been concerningly impossible to find. In fact, Danny recalls, ClockWork had been impossible to find ever since then. Which makes him shiver, the implications of that were deeply concerning. Even if the enigmatic time ghost was supposedly immortal, like Danny. He’d even tried finding the other Ancients for answers, to no luck. 

By the time he had hopped back into the mortal realm, the scientists had figured it out. 

ClockWork had once told him that everything you see, everything you touch, all of it. Everything had a time limit. Everything was at the mercy of time. Even something as simple as genetics or air. And that time was apparently up. Everything’s genetics were functionally breaking down, Mother Nature being unable to reform it anew. 

Danny remembers asking if they could reverse it, cloning was perfectly viable now just incredibly immoral and thus illegal. But of course, exceptions were made, except it didn’t work. No matter what they did the clones were never stable. Even cloning things as basic as chemicals failed. It’s chemical makeup or genetics turning to useless goo near instantly. As if forming those things lost was no longer even possible. In the end, Danny wasn’t too surprised, considering what he knew of Dani and her fate. Though a clone of him she had been, she wasn’t immortal, she was never truly stable. Eventually needing more and more treatments till it simply no longer lasted more than minutes. The two had made an agreement, had decided to let her fade with the closest thing to a father she ever truly had. And the closest thing to a daughter Danny would ever have. It would be unfair to bring a child into his half-life intentionally, so he never did and never would. That was a night he had grieved harder than almost any other before it, the ghosts and humans morning the loss with him, knowing exactly who and what the little black and white halfa girl was. 

So with cloning written off, they had tried to create near exact replicas. Slightly changing things to try and achieve something stable yet similar enough to the original. There was some success on the smallest level before some extinct plants and missing medications became a lesser worry. Because then, then humans started to fall. Birth rates fell, till eventually there wasn’t a single baby in months. People started dying younger and younger. Started being unable to heal even paper-cuts or recover from the simplest of colds. Everyone became highly trained in first aid purely to keep their own bodies from falling apart on them. Synthetic skin and bones had never been more popular. Bionic limbs became so commonplace that seeing someone without any biometal was startling. 

Danny did his part by being a highly mobile medical expert and being a pioneer in Biomech. Seeing as his very specialty was self accessing and self-treating injuries. Sure he frequently had to remind himself that these were humans and that they absolutely could not regrow limbs or liquify parts of their bodies to make reforming breaks easier. But he made it work and his knowledge had been vital for the survival of smaller towns and countries for a long time. 

But then everything came to a head, Danny finally got the big impact he was used to. There wasn’t enough humans, nuclear plants were failing, safety measures weren’t being followed, people were ceasing to care. Danny tried to help keep order, but there’s only so much one guy can do. Getting any malfunctioning bombs off the planet, or cleaning water polluted with massive chemical explosions, or making sure collapsing skyscrapers didn’t destroy entire towns; took precedence over being a leader to the humans. Many parts of the world became uninhabitable in a very short amount of time and eventually, all Danny could do was check those areas himself for any change; giving reports back to the humans when he could. But it was at this point that Danny started to not relish the silence or being alone. He was too alone, everything was too quiet. No bugs buzzing, no undercurrent hum of electricity, no animal cries. It made his own voice jarringly loud in comparison, so he fell into silence more and more. Not just to avoid disturbing things or feeling too loud. But also because there started to not really be anything or anyone to talk to more and more. 

He’s then reminded of a conversation he had with a young twenty-three-year-old scientist who looked something like a patchwork doll, as he floats to weave in between building windows slowly. 

_“It’s been a while since I’ve heard a good joke from you, Phantom”._

_“Telling them to dirt and rubble feels pretty foolish”. _

She had laughed, _“yeah, I guess it would”_, there was a sigh, a pause in the conversation, _“I think maybe you should. Your humour is a pretty vital part of who you are”._

_“I’m not fading. I can’t”._

_“I know. It’s just. It’s worrying honesty. You always have a joke to throw around, no matter the situation or how bad. Now you seem at a loss”._

_“I am at a loss. Ran out of Avengers End Game ones a while ago and those aren’t even relevant anymore. No one even knows what ‘Avengers’ is now. I ran out of material and there doesn’t really seem to be a point to saying them over again”._

_“See that, that’s why it’s worrying. You may only be half-ghost, but you’re still not a creature of change. If anything you’re more inclined against change than full ghosts. And yet here you are, changed. And ghosts... ghosts only change truly when reverting back isn’t an option anymore”._

_“I’m still perfectly capable of making jokes and finding humour”._

_“That’s not really what I mean. I’m saying that... that I don’t really think the reason why you’re out of jokes can be reverted”. _

Danny hadn’t responded to that simply watched her with sad eyes and with facts creeping into the forefront of his mind that he didn’t want to hear. 

While she continued,_ “I think your being can tell, knows on some level, that this isn’t a battle for you to face. Isn’t an enemy you can fight. Isn’t a world for you to save. That this just can’t be fixed, can’t be stopped”._

The was a pause for a while before Danny had nodded slowly and stopped floating to sit on the counter, _“I’m never one to back down or give up. But, yeah. I don’t have the drive, the protective desire, that I should”. _

She had only nodded and gotten back to work.

Shaking his head to clear away the memory, that had been a big thing for him. Really realising his obsession wasn’t acting up, that he didn’t feel the need to help. It had really sealed the deal for him, as all the life around him slowly dwindled away. Which resulted in him spending more and more time with the collections of young humans, less and less time off on his own. The people noticed, seemed to understand. But also strongly had no desire to acknowledge why Phantom was spending as much time with them as he could. Like one does with a dying parent or a pet on their way to being put to sleep. 

It wasn’t long after that when Danny noticed something else, the Zone was...shrinking. Ectoplasm was seemingly beginning to decay and break down as-well. And unlike with the Mortal Realm, the most complex things went first. The most sentient of ghosts. And unlike the Mortal Realm it happened fast; in days even. Pandora’s fading had been cataclysmic, Danny had to hide away her box after ghosts kept stealing it. And that had started a long trend of Danny having to find this artifact or that potentially world-ending weapon, and hide them away. Being forced to split his time between the two dimensions as everything fell apart. Both sides had noticed this change in behaviour. Commenting that Phantom seemed like a man running around trying to keep the sky from falling down. Danny had cracked a few jokes about that, but they lacked the bravado and mirth they usually held. 

And by the time the Zone plants started to wither away, Danny had pretty well abandoned the Zone. Instead spending what time he could with the remaining humans and living animals. All there was to see in the Zone was buildings and the occasional flora, which hardly needed his comfort. But all the same, he elected to not tell the humans. Not wanting to stir up hopelessness or panic. Though his actions told them all they needed to know. They just didn’t tell him such. 

At this point, humanity was functionally split between anarchists and small communities. The communities eventually falling into anarchy themselves, as people lost any belief in things ever getting better. Danny had watched, tried to keep some level of order for a while. But eventually saw the pointlessness of it and people just trying to have some damn fun at the end of the world. Finally acknowledging what this was, what it had been; the apocalypse. And with this acknowledgment he changed, he joined what was left in screwing around. Unnecessary destruction, reckless self endangerment, the rock star lifestyle. Drugs, sex, and rock and roll. Fast, loose and with complete disregard for the future. What was left of the humans flocked to him at this point, riding the high of someone who could let them do things there’s no other way they could do. To say a lot of things had been crossed off bucket lists and final wishes granted, would be an understatement. Even if it made the loss of each individual person hurt Danny all the more. He really was always a self-sacrificial fool. A weaker more selfish person would have just left everyone to their fates. Not walked by their sides till they eventually could walk no more. Till the world fell and life simply stopped existing. 

But Danny did, always would, as he was left standing looking between two worlds were nothing existed anymore. Where there wasn’t even air to make sound or any single thing besides him to break up the silence. 

Danny runs his fingertips across the green road, slowly floating to sail outside of his lairs boundaries. To a vast empty expanse, buildings to ash not having his ectoplasm to build them up again and again. Chunks of the planet itself breaking off as the planet's core cooled away. The bits of hard ground illuminated by his glow and the few still travelling light of dead stars alone, the sun having winked out long ago. 

Danny turns intangible and slips into the ground, floating down to sit on the Earths core. Before being jarred by his ghost sense going off for the first time in eons. Turning his head to his old mentor and friend, in their white beard and simple purple cloak. Turning his head away as he speaks, “it’s been a long time, Father Time”. 

Earning a smirk from the Ancient ghost, “indeed”. 

The two sit in silence for a while, Danny laying on his back on the Earths core, “makes sense I guess”. 

“You hardly needed me. You and the Earth”. 

Danny snorts, “I guess that says it all, doesn’t it. Nothing to do and nothing to help”. The two fall back into silence again, before Danny sits back up and leans into ClockWork to cry. Just the knowledge of something, of someone else being there made the sound of it less massive, less jarring, less painful. As ClockWork rubs his back, giving a level of comfort only a being that saw the end coming and had existed before all other sentient things, could provide.

Danny eventually sniffling and wiping his nose, “is there anything I could have done differently?”.

ClockWork sighs, knowing the self-punishment and blame had been coming, “I’m sorry Daniel, but this is how it has to be. Like all things, everything must have its end. To eventually fade into oblivion and the nothing”.

Danny curls his fingers into ClockWork’s cloak, “but me, I’m still here. I’ll still be here”.

ClockWork pats his head fondly, “of course. Always. Even nothing needs a guardian. And, as it always does, something comes from nothing”. 

Danny nods, makes sense he was an Ancient himself but that hardly phased him. Instead asking, “so there will be life again?”. 

“And therein lies something that not even time can tell”.

Danny gives a somewhat hallow smile, “I thought you knew everything”. 

ClockWork bops him on the nose with a soft smile, “only nothing can know what nothing has in store”. 

Danny rests his head on ClockWork’s lap, “so me, the Ancient guardian of nothing”. 

ClockWork pets down Danny’s hair as he speaks, “as it always was to be”, leaning over to kiss Danny’s hair, whispering as to not break the silence to severally. The silence that their young companion had grown comfortable with and would surely be surrounded by for a long time to come, “and nothing needs nothing to truly flourish”. 

Before fading away and leaving Danny alone to sleep on top of the very core of the planet he loved so very much. As even it too began to crumble away into nothing, having been the last remaining thing in the universe. Once sustained only by Danny’s will and ectoplasm. Now falling away finally, as his being accepts what he truly is. The nothing after something and the nothing before something. The one true constant of the universe. For nothing doesn’t need something to exist but something never exists without nothing. Leaving nothing as the guardian of the universe and the guardian of nothing to guard it all forever. 

**End. **


End file.
